


Those Glist'ning Houses

by circ_bamboo



Series: Femslash Ask Box Prompts, Filled [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: (okay actually Minnesota Cabin), Academy Era, Canadian Shack, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:15:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin Barry + Number One + Academy Era + Snowed In + There's Only One Bed + Huddling ("huddling") For Warmth. That's it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Glist'ning Houses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LJC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJC/gifts).



> From a prompt from LJC. Title from [here](http://www.lyrics007.com/Bing%20Crosby%20Lyrics/Snow%20%28From%20White%20Christmas%29%20Lyrics.html). Unbeta'd because I got too impatient.

"There are," Caitlin Barry said as she looked at the PADD she was holding, "millions of M-class planets in the known universe. There are fifty-four of them approved for visit for this stupid winter break training exercise. How did we get stuck in Minnesota, of all places?"

Number One, Cait's oddly-named two-years-younger classmate and partner for the current exercise, shrugged and said mildly, "It's pretty up here. I'm given to understand that Lake Superior doesn't always freeze over."

"No idea," Cait said. "I'm from Boston."

"I'm from Illyria," One pointed out, and Cait gave a bark of uncomfortable laughter.

She and One weren't that close; classmates, yes, and more than casual acquaintances, maybe even friends but not . . . _friends_ friends. At nineteen, One was nowhere near the youngest in their year at Starfleet Academy, but the age gap between her and most of the rest of the class, combined with her Illyrian childhood, made certain circumstances awkward. Like the current circumstance.

Which was probably why their advisor had paired them up for the wilderness survival exercise.

To be air, their assignment was one of the cushy ones. They were dropped off in Gooseberry Falls, about an hour northeast of Duluth, Minnesota, and had to take the Superior Hiking Trail over to Lutsen, a ski resort town a hundred and sixty kilometers away. The Superior Hiking Trail was old, more than two hundred and fifty years old at that point, and well-maintained, but it was intentionally kept fairly natural, and was only sporadically marked. Civilization, or at least small towns, were never that far away, but they were not to make any use of them unless it was a true emergency, and their supplies were limited: a tent, two sleeping bags, two phasers, enough dried food for three days, and a tiny space heater. They had no global location system, no actual mapping software (the PADD Cait had only told them where they started, ended, and the rules), no trackers, and no communicators.

Oh, and it was January. In northern Minnesota. The air temperature, at that very moment, was ten degrees below zero C, and the sun would set in about six hours at most.

It could have been worse, surely.

"Well," One said, after Cait had been silent for a good five minutes. "We only have a few hours of daylight, and we have quite a ways to go before we hit Tettegouche."

"That's fifty-some klicks away," Cait said, and then facepalmed. "Or a third of the way, you're right."

One said nothing, but Cait could see the small smile without having to look.

The good thing about moving was that it made them warm up quickly; they hiked in silence for a couple hours, and then stopped to distribute food.

"It could be worse," One said. "This same part of the trail is used for the Superior Trail Race, has been for two hundred and some-odd years. It's a hundred miles long, and there's a thirty-four-hour cutoff."

"Thirty-four hours?" Cait said. "But that's -- they're going straight for a day and a half."

"Oh," One said, "that's the cutoff. The course record is under twenty hours."

"I . . . whoa," Cait said. "That's -- nope." She shoved the rest of her energy bar in her mouth, and stuffed the wrapper in her pocket.

"I've been tempted," One said, completely unexpected to Cait, although she did know that One liked to run long distances. But, it seemed to Cait, a marathon was one thing. A hundred miles? Totally different.

"The idea of pushing myself, seeing what I can do like that? It's appealing."

"Of course it is," Cait said.

"Or I might do Tuscobia instead," One said, as if Cait hadn't spoken. "That's not too far from here, and it's two hundred forty kilometers -- a hundred and fifty miles. Better yet, it's held in January."

"When's the hundred-mile race?"

"September," One said with a shrug. "Shall we go?"

"We shall," Cait said.

Darkness fell, and the temperature with it; they busted out the headlamps, and kept moving. "Ten more kilometers," One said, looking at an old, rotted wooden sign. "We can do that in, what, two hours?"

"Sure," Cait said.

It started snowing a few minutes later, and Cait frowned. "I didn't think snow was in the weather report," she said.

"It was about a twenty percent chance," One said, looking up. "Hopefully it'll stay light like this."

"Yeah," Cait said.

It didn't.

Twenty minutes later they were in whiteout conditions. "This was _not_ in the weather report," Cait said. She'd grabbed One's hand a few minutes ago so they wouldn't get separated. "What do we do, keep moving? Hole up in the tent?"

"The tent's not really strong enough to handle snow like this for very long," One said. "We have to keep moving, at least for now."

"You're right," Cait said.

A half hour later, One asked, "Do you think we're still on the trail?"

"I'm reasonably sure we're not in the middle of Lake Superior," Cait said, dusting a pile of snow off of her hood. "Other than that, I have no idea." She took another step, kicked . . . something, and stopped. "I'd guess not, though."

"Why not?" One stopped as well, largely because Cait forced her to. "Wait. Why are we standing on concrete?"

"I think you're right, and we're not on the trail anymore."

An errant gust of wind kept the snow out of their faces long enough to reveal a cabin no more than six meters away.

"Well, that would seem to confirm it," One said dryly.

"Come on," Cait said, and headed for the door.

"You know," One said as she let herself be dragged along, "I was going to point out that asking for help is against the rules, but then again, so is a blizzard."

"I wasn't even thinking of the rules," Cait admitted, and she knocked on the door.

No one answered, and after a moment, One stepped up to the security pad by the door.

"What are you doing?" Cait asked, even though it was obvious.

"No one's home, it's an emergency, and the alarm system is twenty years out of date," One said. A few presses to the keypad later, she added, "And they never changed the code from the system default. Let's go." The door unlocked and One pushed it open.

"Aren't you a pilot in training?" Cait asked as she stomped the snow from her boots.

One slanted a glance at her. "I want to be a captain," she said. "I'm . . . cross-training, I guess, in all disciplines."

"Fair enough," Cait said. She closed and locked the door behind them -- she knew that particular security system, too -- and looked around.

The cabin was fairly basic, one big room with everything but the bedroom and bathroom, and a pair of doors to one side probably leading to them. The heat wasn't on, but One found the controls and turned the artificial fireplace on It flickered for a few minutes, while they pulled off their wet outer layers and draped them over the (plastic) chairs, and then died. One went back to the panel and sighed. "Out of fuel," she said. "The house heat is working but at best I can get it to about twelve degrees C for three or four days without having to go find more fuel."

"Why are they running on such an antiquated system?" Cait asked, pulling off her socks to exchange them for a dry pair.

"I have no idea," One said. "You would have a better guess than me."

"Maybe they like the idea of roughing it, but not too much," Cait said, "Ahhhh, fresh socks." She wiggled her toes inside the nice layer of poly-wool blend.

"Hm," One said. "Dinner?"

"Let's see what they have," Cait said.

Some freeze-dried and sealed stuff, it turned out, different and tastier than what they'd brought. They ate a meal's worth, and then curled up under blankets by the non-working fire, listening to the wind whip around outside. "You'd think that twelve would feel nice and toasty compared to ten below," Cait said, pulling the blanket over her nose, "but you'd be wrong."

One shrugged. "It's still cold, comparatively," she said.

"Are you okay?"

"I think I'm a little more suited to the cold than you are," One said, clearly choosing her words carefully.

"Oh," Cait said. "The designer baby thing?"

"A century of selective breeding, yes," One said, but she was smiling, so Cait shoved her toes under One's thigh and grinned back.

At some point there was nothing to do but go to sleep. "There's only one bed, though," One said.

"It's giant," Cait said. "We were going to share a tent half this size and you think I'm going to care about sharing a king-sized bed?"

"If you put it that way," One said. "We're going to have to put our sleeping bags on top. The bedding is summer-weight. Well, summer in northern Minnesota-weight."

Cait rubbed a corner of the comforter between two fingers. "Good point."

They unzipped the sleeping bags and spread them over the bed, overlapping since neither was large enough by itself. Cait stripped down to her long underwear and then dug through the nearby dresser and found a t-shirt to wear instead. It was clean and smelled fresh enough, and it was long enough to cover her butt. She'd be more than warm enough in the bed, under three layers of blankets and two sub-zero-rated sleeping bags. If all else failed, she could probably cuddle up with One.

Who, speak of the devil, was standing around in _her_ long underwear. "Hey," Cait said. "You can't wear that. It's gonna insulate all your body heat away from me. Also, it's not _that_ comfortable."

"I know," One said, "but . . ."

"Yours is cute, yeah," Cait said, "but your virtue is safe, if that's what you're worried about. C'mon. Strip."

"First, you're presuming that I have what you're colloquially referring to as 'virtue,'" One said, the words briefly muffled as she stripped off her shirt, revealing the Starfleet-issued black bra standard with the Academy uniform. "Second, you're staring at my butt?" One turned around and _bent over at the waist_ as she stripped off the leggings. "Third," she said, unhooking her bra while glancing at Cait over her shoulder, "yours is cute, too. And last," One said, shoving her thumbs into the waistband of her underwear and pushing it past her hips, letting it fall to the floor, "get in here." She turned, strode purposefully to the bed, and climbed under the covers, pulling them up to her chin.

Cait blinked. "Wow."

"I mean," One said, and she seemed to shrink a little. "If you want to."

Cait's brain snapped back into action and she yanked the t-shirt back off her head and pitched it on the floor, leaving her underwear there as well. "Of course the fuck I do," she said, diving between the sheets, which were still pretty well chilled. "YOW."

"Come over here," One said, and Cait scooted over.

"How are you so warm?" she asked, because One felt almost like she was burning compared to the sheets and Cait's skin.

"Designer baby," One said, and pulled Cait into her side, tangling their legs together. "We covered this. You're really quite cold to the touch."

"I'm aware," Cait said, and buried her nose in One's neck. One smelled wonderful, like fresh snow and whatever body wash she used, and she was radiating heat like it was her job.

And, now that Cait had regained some of the heat she'd lost standing there in a t-shirt gawping, she could go back to the part where One had pretty much just propositioned her.

"Before, were you suggesting that we should have sex to warm up?" Cait said, pulling her head up enough to be intelligible.

"No," One said, but she didn't sound defensive and she didn't tense up. "I was suggesting we have sex because we're in a getaway cabin in the biggest bed we'll probably see for the next thirty or forty years, and you're gorgeous and I'd like to have sex with you, but it would probably warm us up, too."

Cait giggled, then snorted, and it grew into full-blown peals of laughter pretty much immediately.

"I didn't think it was that funny," One said, once Cait had calmed down a tiny bit.

"It's hilarious," Cait said, "and the best reason I've ever heard to have sex, so kiss me."

One chuckled and rolled them over so Cait was on her back and One was above her, their legs slotted together, and Cait sighed with pleasure at the warmth and the feel of One's soft skin against hers. She was still smiling a little as One's lips touched hers, but when One slanted her head and turned the kiss from warm to incinerating, Cait could do nothing but hold on for the ride.

She wrapped her arms around One's back, and then let go to stroke every inch of skin she could get her hands on, hoping her hands weren't as cold as they felt. Reaching down, she could just about get her hands on One's rear end; a little bit of a push got One grinding against her and then gasping into her mouth, and it was _perfect_.

"Oh, oh, _oh_ ," Cait said, her eyes squeezed shut as One mouthed along the tendon on the side of her neck and nipped at her collarbone. She ground up into One's thigh as One thrust into hers, and _oh_ , it felt good. Her hands just barely fit between them, so she could cup One's breasts, warm and full, and One shuddered and bit down where Cait's collarbone met her shoulder.

A thumb across One's nipple made her cry out; light scratches with Cait's nails made One moan. One arched her back and mouthed her way down to Cait's breasts, teasing each in turn until Cait was writhing under her. "Ugh, One, _fuck_ ," she groaned.

One tensed her thigh and pushed it against Cait's cunt, managing to coordinate her thrusts with the movements of her tongue on Cait's breasts, and it was amazing and wonderful and . . . "I can't come this way," Cait said, breathless and throaty and _so_ turned on.

"Oh, good," One said, lifting her head, and her voice was rough and low, as well. "Neither can I." She rolled off to lie next to Cait, practically half on top of her, and said, "What do you want instead?"

Cait reached over and grabbed One's hand, turning it and placing One's fingertips just on the right spot. "This," she said.

"Well, if you're sure," One said, laughter in her voice; she leaned in and pressed her lips to Cait's temple. "Faster? Slower?"

"No, that's --" Cait jerked a little as One hit a really good speed. "That's -- just right -- ah!"

"Okay," One said. "Like that?"

"Yeah, just like -- ah! -- just like -- oh, don't stop!"

And she didn't, not until Cait had tensed and shuddered and called out One's name.

"Oh, God," Cait said a minute or two later, when the rushing in her ears had stopped and the sparkles had cleared from her vision. "That was amazing."

"Thank you," One said, and she pushed her nose into Cait's neck the way Cait had before. "Can I --"

"On your back, missy," Cait said, and pushed One over with a show of strength she really hadn't been sure she had until she did it. "What do you like?" she said, stroking the inside of One's thighs gently.

"I like _you_ ," One said. "Here, how about --" She rearranged Cait until she was propped up over One, and then carefully folded down Cait's ring and pinky fingers. "There," she said. "Can you --"

"Yeah," Cait said, and slid her first finger along One's folds, pressing until she was inside. "Good?"

"It's great," One said, a little breathily. "It'll be even better when you _move_."

"Picky, picky," Cait said, but did start moving; one she could slide easily inside One, she added a second finger, and edged over until she could press her thumb against One's clit. She wasn't coordinated enough to rub circles with her thumb as she thrust in and out with her fingers, but she could at least give some stimulation.

One seemed to enjoy it; she closed her eyes and tipped her head back, biting her lower lip, making tiny noises in her throat. "Yeah," she said at one point, when Cait had crooked her fingers a little. "Yeah, that's -- that's it, just --"

"Tell me what you need," Cait said, leaning down a little so she could speak quietly into One's ear.

"I need -- just -- a little more -- I need you to -- oh -- _fuck_ me!" One gasped.

Cait leaned her body into One's and gave a couple of good thrusts with her hand, her thumb still on One's clit, and it was One's turn to come, her body tensing and then releasing in a series of shudders, Cait's name on her lips.

Cait hesitated for about half a second and then reached down and captured One's lips with hers. In an unexpected show of strength and lucidity for someone mere seconds past orgasm, One raised her hands and captured Cait's head, digging her fingers into Cait's curls and holding her still for a long, thorough kiss.

When One let her go, Cait had just enough presence of mind to pull her fingers out of One and put her hand on the bed so she didn't tip over. She looked down at the younger woman and said, "Oh."

"Yeah," One said.

"That was --"

"Great," One said. "It was great, it was awesome, it was amazing, and if you don't come down here and cuddle me I'm going to flap the blankets and let the cold in."

Cait yelped and dropped to the mattress, curling up along One's side. "Please don't," she said, and ducked her head under the blankets.

"I wouldn't have really," One said and kissed the top of Cait's head. "Now, sleep."

"Yeah," Cait said. "And then what?"

"And then we see whether we should try to make it the rest of the way, or call in an emergency," One said. "I'm thinking it's even odds right now."

"Ah," Cait said.

"And maybe when we get back to the Academy," One said, "we can see what it's like on a standard-sized bunk?" Her voice was a little quieter this time.

"Yes please," Cait said, probably a little too quickly, but One just chuckled and tightened her arm around Cait briefly.

**Author's Note:**

> The [Superior Hiking Trail](http://www.shta.org/) is amazing. The [fall Superior Trail Race](http://fall.superiortrailrace.com/) is also amazing. I like to think that both will be relatively unchanged in 22-whatever.


End file.
